The Gujarat Assembly, on Saturday, passed a landmark Bill making voting in elections for local bodies mandatory. The Gujarat Local Authorities Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2009, which has met with severe criticism from the Opposition, also increases the reservation for women in local self-governance bodies from 33 percent to 50 percent. The Bill seeks to amend the Bombay Provincial Municipal Corporation Act, 1949, the Gujarat Municipalities Act, 1963 and the Gujarat Panchayats Act, 1993.

The Bill makes voting in all local body elections compulsory, except in prescribed cases laid down in the Bill. Those who do not vote will be served notice, and will have to provide satisfactory reasons for failure to vote within thirty days of the election taking place. Penalties for defaulters include deprivation of below poverty line (BPL) cards and government services. The Opposition has objected strenuously to the penalty provisions, in particular, terming them "unconstitutional", and saying that voters must be "persuaded, not coerced."

The Bill also introduces the concept of a negative or zero vote. Persons who do not wish to vote for any of the candidates can cast a zero vote. The practicalities of the system are yet to be worked out, in a set of special rules that are to be framed by the Government later. However, one of the possible outcomes of a negative vote system is that if the number of zero votes exceeds the number of positive votes cast, the entire list of candidates could be disqualified.

Gujarat is the first state to introduce compulsory voting. The objective of the Bill, according to the ruling BJP, is to involve the voters, especially from the lower strata of society and thereby strengthen the democratic process. The Election Commission has currently ruled out the introduction of any similar experiments at the national level, but has said that it will watch the proceedings in Gujarat with interest.

Jasmine Shah, one of the co-ordinators of the Jaago Re- One Billion Votes campaign, feels that not enough thought and public debate has gone into the drafting of this legislation. "The majority of Indians feel that mandatory voting is a good thing," he says, "But I don't think the government has put enough thought into the implementation of this law. A provision for mandatory voting means that there should be a penalty for non-voting. The administration process for compiling the electoral rolls is not yet perfect- many of the electoral rolls, after 62 years, are still full of errors. How then will the government implement the mandatory voting? This will only give rise to corruption within the system," he opines.

The first of the elections for local bodies will take place in October 2010, and will act as the true test of the Bill's on-the-ground viability.